


Bad Day

by Nwar



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Depression, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2020-10-24 04:50:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20700224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nwar/pseuds/Nwar
Summary: John Watson has a bad day.





	1. Chapter 1

John Watson is in a bad mood. He woke up halfway through a dream, in that twilight feeling of tiredness and mourning. He swung his legs over only to find a mouse dropping in his right slipper. He groaned and went to brush his teeth, remembering that, for the fifth day in a row, he’d forgotten to buy more toothpaste and needed to physically fight the tube to get any out.  
He went to make toast and found that only the two end pieces of bread were left, and after he’d already brewed a double-bag strong cup of tea, found the honey to be next-to-empty.  
He went to work and got spit, snot, vomit, and piss on his clothes from a variety of ill and ill-mannered patients. He misfiled a report and had to be called before his supervisor to clarify that no, he had not treated someone in the future, that he’d simply made a typo when putting in the date. He had to put off a patient for two hours for a conference call with the NHS operator, which was confusing and unhelpful on every level, and only left him with an irate mother of a screaming toddler. A woman refused to get her flu shot because she said it hurt her more to get a needle than it would hurt to get the flu.  
He left work ten minutes late after fighting with the clock-out machine, and started his bus ride back to 221B. He remembered, directly after passing the stop for Boots, that he still needed to buy toothpaste. He got off at the next stop and had to walk a quarter mile back to get it. They were out of the brand he usually used, and he had to pick one that was evergreen instead of winter mint.  
He walked to the stop he’d missed, but the train was delayed so he sat on the bench and took out his phone. He realized that the night before he’d plugged his phone in to a charger that itself wasn’t plugged into the wall, which resulted in him now having only seven percent battery while waiting for the bus. And because he was a responsible adult, he couldn’t use that seven percent to play games and fuck about while waiting because what if there was an emergency and Sherlock needed to call him? So he stared at the building opposite for thirty seven minutes until the bus arrived and took him, thankfully swiftly, home.  
He stubbed his toe on the staircase as he trudged up, feeling exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with his actual energy and everything to do with feeling utterly put-upon by the entire world.  
He opened the door to 221B, and found the dishes still sitting on the living room table, and his tea mug with two bags still full and undrank from when he’d abandoned it when he realized there was no honey. Fuck, he’d forgotten to buy honey.  
But Sherlock was there. Sherlock was sprawled out on the sofa, long limbs draped over the back and armrests like a big pale octopus, thin hands shifting a newspaper down so he could see the doorway.  
John dropped his satchel by the door, shrugged off his jacket directly onto the floor, Boots bag disappearing underneath it, and walked toward the couch.  
Sherlock shifted slightly, now more interested. He remained silent as John sluggishly brought one knee down between Sherlock’s spread legs, crawling over him gingerly, before finally bringing his chin into the nook of Sherlock’s neck and deflating over him.  
Sherlock brought a hand around to pat his back, and John, like a tired child, nuzzled deeper into him.  
“Bad day?” Sherlock asked quietly. They were the first words he’d said all day.  
“Bad day,” John confirmed. And he laid there, wrapped in the comfort of Sherlock, and the softness of a home that wanted him to succeed, until he was strong enough to continue.


	2. Despair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I never intended to make a second part to this, but it is actually very cathartic for me so I hope someone else is feeling comfort from it too.

Sherlock left for the lab around half seven. John was still in bed. Sherlock pulled on his gloves, signature coat already on his shoulders, and pushed the door open to look in their bedroom. He was surprised to find that John hadn’t gotten up yet, and was still just a soft ruffle of hair sticking up from their thick winter comforter. Sherlock smiled and carefully shut the door without waking him.   
He was starting to feel the effects of not eating around four, after he’d run back and forth along the Thames checking the drying development on his skin samples. He’d been dashing to each one, trying to get precise measurements for the rate at which they cracked in the sun, and after an hour had to lean against the tide wall from dizziness.   
He realized, probably later than a genius should, that he hadn’t eaten anything because John usually made him breakfast. He remembered John lying in their bed, nothing but a lump of comforter, the shape of his body blurred by the thick down.   
Maybe John hadn’t gotten up to kiss him goodbye because it was cold and he didn’t want to get out of bed.   
Maybe it wasn’t that.   
Sherlock, feeling a turning in his stomach beyond hunger pangs, gathered up his samples. He forced himself not to walk hurriedly returning them to Bart’s, and spoke slower than his usual breakneck pace to place his order at their usual chinese.   
Sherlock arrived back to 221B around 5:30, sun already starting to set with midwinter haste. His breath shortened as he opened the door to the flat. Dust undisturbed, immersion not on, air flat with the stale cold of an empty home. It didn’t take a detective to see that the room hadn’t been used.   
Sherlock set the chinese bag down on the kitchen table and forced himself to calmly remove his gloves and scarf. He left the coat on, now too impatient. There was no sense in both of them getting worked up, but Sherlock made no sense without John anyway.   
He knocked on their bedroom door this time.   
“John?” He asked hesitantly. He scoffed at himself-- asking permission to enter his own bedroom. He turned the knob slowly, anyway.   
“John?” He asked again.   
Sherlock’s shoulders fell when he saw that the comforters were still in the same shape, bent like a broken bridge over John laying on his side.   
Sherlock climbed, still in his coat and shoes, on top of the covers. He reached up and pulled back the corner of the comforter to see John’s face. His eyes were red with what was clearly hours of crying, and salty tracks were dried into his cheeks and stained into the pillowcase.   
“I’m sorry,” was the first thing he croaked.   
“Oh, John,” Sherlock said, voice cracking. He carefully leaned against the pillows so he could bring John’s head into his chest.   
For a few moments, the only sounds in the room were stifled chokes and the dull slide and thump of Sherlock toeing off his shoes from his place on the bed.   
Minutes passed. John’s phone still lay open on the side of the pillow, relentless scrolling in search of distraction discarded for a brief grasp at comfort.   
“I brought some food. Do you want to come out to the kitchen?”   
John looked up at him. What Sherlock saw in those eyes made his chest feel like strangled fire.   
Sherlock retrieved the food and brought forks. John had already scooted up in bed, dragged at his face with his pajama sleeves. He smelled of their warm bed and cold sweat.   
So they sat there, Sherlock crosslegged and telling John every detail of his day, filling in every second that John had lain motionless on his pillow. For just this day, and many days in the past, and surely, though tragically, days in the future, Sherlock lived for the both of them.   
John sat and listened to him, and then, like every other time, he got out only to brush his teeth, and then came back to bed. Sherlock held him, and John shuddered occasionally with a new thought and a new wave of despair, and Sherlock held him.


End file.
